Stop Billions in Wasteful Spending: Audit the Division of Water Resources

Tapping Taxpayers: How the Division of Water Resources is Pumping Utahns for Billions

A Thorough Audit is Needed

Water is critical to life in Utah. We drink it. We grow food with it. We create beautiful landscapes with it. It’s essential to fish and wildlife species, with 80 percent of Utah’s wildlife dependent upon our rivers for a portion of their lifecycles. Our water also supports a multibillion dollar outdoor economy which provides hundreds of thousands of Utah jobs.

But Utah’s water policies are being mismanaged, and it’s time to address this mismanagement.

The Utah Division of Water Resources is charged with planning for the use and conservation of Utah’s water. In practice, this agency has devoted itself to misinforming decision-makers and the public about the need to raise taxes for a single purpose: unnecessary government spending for large capital projects. We the undersigned hereby request that the Legislative Auditor General’s Office conduct an audit of the Division of Water Resources.

Letter to

Members of the Utah Legislative Audit Subcommittee

I am writing to respectfully request that the Legislative Auditor General’s Office conduct an audit of the Utah Division of Water Resources to ensure that the state’s precious water resources are managed correctly and to stop the hemorrhaging of billions of dollars in wasteful spending.

The Division has lobbied for large, expensive water projects like the exorbitant $1.5 billion Lake Powell Pipeline rather than implementing water conservation measures to provide water for Utahns at a fraction of the cost.

Utah is America’s most wasteful water user according to per capita water use figures from a variety of sources. The Division of Water Resources claims each Utahn uses 295 gallons of water each day, nearly twice the national average. This use is higher than scores of cities across the Western U.S., and nearly twice the national average.

The Utah Division of Water Resources is charged with planning for the use and conservation of Utah’s water. In practice, this agency has devoted itself to misinforming decision-makers and the public about the need to raise taxes for a single purpose: unnecessary government spending for large capital projects.

Utah’s water policies are being mismanaged, and it’s time to address this mismanagement.